You Better, You Better, You Bet
by iworkwithpens
Summary: Based on a new clip from season two. Is it really Will's relationship with the viewers that he is talking about when he sings the lyrics to The Who's song? When I say I love you, you say you better. You better, you better, you bet.


**Author's Notes: This story is based on a new clip from season two that I have only been able to find at E! Online so far. If you don't watch that clip first, this won't make much sense. So, go to E! Online, then go to TV Scoop, then on the right hand side of that page, go to videos. Scroll down until you find a clip entitled "The Newsroom Big Shots Duke It Out." I would post a link, but this site doesn't let you do that…sorry. This is my interpretation of what happened after that clip. A million thanks to KatyCat for providing a link to that wonderful fluffy scene. A million thanks to G for urging me to write something even though I've been feeling stuck lately. Oh…just thanks everyone! Enjoy!**

_I call you on the telephone,  
My voice too rough with cigarettes  
I sometimes feel I should just go home,  
But I'm dealing with a memory that never forgets  
~The Who, You Better You Bet_

"When I say I love you…" It felt ridiculously good to say those words to her, if only in song lyrics. And that's when he knew how stupid he was being, and how patient she was being, and how they both should stop _being _idiots and just _be_ together.

That was also the moment when he was struck by an impressively intelligent idea, for a man who had just downed four scotches, anyway. If she didn't have her purse, or her wallet, or any money…how the hell was she getting into her apartment? Did she keep her keys in her bra these days? Ok, not the time to think about Mackenzie's bra. You're trying to be the gallant hero, not the ass who just wants to get into her knickers. But he did, want to get into her knickers that is, and he also had to wonder when he started thinking in British slang. Why the hell was a fifty-year-old guy from Nebraska referring to women's underwear as knickers?

"Fucking drone strikes, fucking replacement senior producers, fucking Mackenzie and her fucking keys in her fucking knickers" he mumbled as he pulled out what little cash he had left in his wallet.

"Just how many of those have you had?" Lonny asked, nodding toward his drink, and Will had to wonder how long the man had been standing there.

"Enough" he said seriously.

"Enough to notice that fucking Mackenzie and her fucking knickers left five minutes ago?" Lonny chuckled.

"Hey! You can't talk about her knickers! I shouldn't even be talking about them, but where in the hell does the woman keep her keys?!" he shouted at the bodyguard.

"Ok, time for you to go home now" Lonny said calmly, and tried to guide him from the bar.

"I can't go home! Mackenzie has no keys!" he shouted, as if that simple fact were the most important thing in the world at the moment. Forget Pakistan and the Taliban and whether or not Leona Lansing was going to fire him…Mackenzie had no keys!

"And what do you think _we're_ going to do about it?" Lonny asked, practically pushing him into the SUV.

"Help her?" Will shrugged pitifully.

"Do _you_ have keys to her apartment?" Lonny asked. Perfectly reasonable question, Will realized, so he searched his key ring.

"I do!" he shouted with glee.

"Well, that's our first hurdle crossed, I guess. Where does she live?" And as Will gave out directions to a place he once knew like the back of his hand, he started to wonder what he intended to do when he got there.

_I love to hear you say my name  
Especially when you say yes  
I got your body right now on my mind  
But I drunk myself blind to the sound of old T-Rex_

"We're here Romeo" Lonny shouted to wake up the slumped over anchor in the back seat of his car.

"I'm Don Quixote!" he replied indignantly.

"Whatever. We're here" Lonny repeated, looking up at the building pointedly.

"Oh, yeah…thanks. See you tomorrow Lonny."

"You're staying here? Is that the best idea you've ever had?"

"Hey! Stay out of my love life. I thought you were my bodyguard, not my psychotherapist" Will tutted as he slammed the door.

"You two need more than one psychotherapist. Habib tagged me in" Lonny shouted as he pulled away.

"Jesus Christ! T.M.I. has nothing on the employees of AWM" Will muttered. But even he had to admit that he and Mac had dragged everyone around them into their romantic drama. If it wasn't mistakenly sent emails, then it was shouting matches in the middle of the newsroom. They were hardly stealthy in their interactions. He was sure he had looked at her longingly across the conference room table a time or two.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

What the hell was that, he wondered as he climbed the stairs to the third floor?

Thump. Thump. Thump.

"Mackenzie! Stop!" he shouted, running over to where she was sprawled out on the floor in front of her apartment door, banging her head back against the entryway.

"What the hell took you so long?!" she shouted blearily.

"What do you mean what took me so long? You took a cab home. I was supposed to follow you?" he asked, still crouched down in front of her and cradling her head in his hands so she wouldn't let it fall back against her door again.

"I didn't have my purse."

"Yeah, I realized that about five minutes after you left. Here" he said, offering her his hand. He pulled her up beside him and unlocked her front door.

"You still have keys to my apartment?" she asked, astonished.

"Well, thankfully you still live in the same place, or we'd be out of luck."

"Rent control" she mumbled. "Want a drink?" she offered, pulling off her heels and stockings as she headed down the hallway.

"Haven't we had enough to drink already tonight?" he asked, collapsing onto her sofa and tilting his head back against the wall. Very little had changed here, he noticed. Same furniture, same books, same paintings on the wall. Same bed, he wondered? And would that be good? Would that be the same mattress that she had fucked Brian on? Shit! He swore he wasn't going to do that anymore! Wasn't going to let Mackenzie-bashing be his default mode. At least he hadn't said it out loud this time. That was an improvement, right?

"Here" she said, shoving a tumbler of scotch into his hands, and slouching down on the couch next to him, cradling her own drink in her hands.

"You better shove me back into line now" he sang under his breath.

"What?!" she asked, tilting her head to look at him.

"That's the next line. 'You better love me all the time now, you better shove me back in line now. You better, you better, you bet'" he hummed.

"And?" she replied impatiently.

"And…that's you. You're the one who keeps me in line. Not Jim, and not Jerry Dantana, or whatever the hell his name is. Why are you letting them run your show?" And really, that's what he'd been wanting to ask her for days now. Because if he and Mac weren't lovers anymore, and they were just barely friends (pal of mine, indeed)…then all they had left was the show. All they had left was anchor and E.P. And, damn it, she seemed to be giving that up these days.

"I can't do it all forever Will" she said wearily.

"Why not? You're nearly fifteen years younger than I am. You can keep doing it until I'm long gone from this network." Please, please, he wanted to beg…you have to keep doing this because I can't do it without you. And I can't lose the only link I have left to you.

"I don't think you realize it Will, but I'm doing the job of three people most of the time. Mainly because you don't trust anyone else to do it. But you don't exactly trust me either, do you? I set the layout for the show, I help you write your script, I proof it, and I pick out your wardrobe. You don't even know what you're doing, do you?" she asked.

"Enlighten me, oh great and powerful Oz. Apparently you're the woman behind the curtain, so you tell me what it is I've been doing all this time. I thought I was doing the damn news!" he replied curtly, and downed the last of his scotch.

"You are making me what I was before Will. We talk in the middle of the night, only now it's by phone. I pick out your clothes, only now I do it from a closet at the studio. I tell you where to be and what to do and what to say. I'm your fucking wife Will! Without any of the fucking!" she screamed. She grabbed their glasses and stomped off toward the kitchen, and that was when he heard the crash.

"Mac!" He jumped up off the sofa faster than he would have thought possible and found her standing amongst the remnants of two shattered glasses.

"They slipped" she said tearily, but he could tell she had thrown them at the wall. The remains of her glass of red wine were dripping down the cabinets and sink and walls and she just stood there amidst the wreckage.

"Go sit down, I'll get this" he held out his hand and tried to help her around the shattered glass on the floor, but she still managed to put her foot right into the mess.

"Ouch!" she grimaced and tumbled into his arms. "This night is just getting better and better" she said glumly, and wiped her tears and her runny nose on his shirt.

"That's a two hundred dollar shirt Mac" he whispered into her hair.

"Sorry" she snuffled.

"Come on." He helped her back to the bathroom and sat her down on the counter. He pulled her left foot up into his big hands and examined it. No damage. The same could not be said for her right foot. He wiped it off with some tissue and searched underneath the sink for supplies.

"I'm sorry I've been treating you like my work wife. I didn't realize" he said sincerely, as he dabbed at the cuts on her foot with hydrogen peroxide. She hissed and tried to pull her foot away.

"It wouldn't be so bad if it came with any of the fringe benefits" she mumbled. He grinned to himself.

"I let you take all the money out of my wallet. Isn't that what a good husband would do?" he asked her.

"You keep three hundred dollars in a money clip in your other pocket" she huffed out. She knew him too well.

"Gotta be prepared for those moments when the wife steals all your cash" he chuckled, and then dipped his head under the sink again to look for bandages.

"Don't do that Will. Don't call me something I will never be." And the sadness in her voice and in her eyes when she said it was just about his undoing.

_I don't really mind how much you love me  
Ooh, a little is alright  
When you say come over and spend the night_

And that was when he remembered what she had said in the bar. It was only after he'd repeated that lyric about not caring if someone loved you just a little bit…it was then that she'd compared the song to what she was going through with him. Would it really be okay with her if he said he could just love her "a little bit"? Had he pushed her down so far that she was willing to accept that from him? Accept a pitiful imitation of the relationship they had once had?

"Do I have any say in what you will or won't be?" he said, wiping her tears.

"You have _all_ the say in what I will or won't be. That's what you don't seem to understand. You play with it…you play with what we could be. And it hurts Will….it hurts."

She stared into his eyes and he knew she was talking about the fucking ring in his desk. It had been cruel and vicious and had felt good for all of two seconds… and then he just felt like an ass.

"I know and I'm sorry I'm not figuring it all out fast enough. I'm old. I'm set in my ways. I'm an ass" he said, knocking shoulders with her and feeling a warmth spread through him when she smiled despite her tears.

"Yes, you are" she agreed.

"Can I stay here tonight? That way I won't wake you up at three in the morning when I can't sleep and I need my E.P. to reassure me."

"You'll still wake me up, Billy. You'll just do it from across the bed instead of across town."

"True" he admitted, and helped her off the countertop and let her lean on him as they walked toward her bedroom.

While she limped about the room pulling off her work clothes and pulling on some pajamas, he quickly stripped down to his boxers and hopped under the covers.

Mackenzie practically fell into bed with him and carefully settled herself against his side while somehow keeping her injured foot away from him.

"I'll be careful…I swear" he reassured her, and he didn't know if he was talking about the cuts on her foot or her damaged spirit and her broken heart.

"You better" she replied.

"You better, you better, you bet" he hummed as they fell asleep.


End file.
